Die Hard humanized (and perfected) the action movie

It is a weekend and who does not love binge movie sessions? Well, I do and I don’t know of anyone who does not. Winter is coming in Delhi and it is a good time to snuggle in your bed the whole day watching movies. Today’s needull discusses Die Hard – how it was different from all the other action movies of the time and why it is a trendsetter.

The everyman appeal of Willis is key to the success of Die Hard. Before taking the role of McClane, Willis had mostly been known as a wisecracking TV detective, one who sometimes sang oldies, on Moonlighting. In the movie, he kept that natural asshole charm fully intact, and he also transformed himself into a credible badass by throwing himself physically into the role, doing some of his own stunts and always convincingly coming across as someone who knew he could die at any moment. By the end of the movie, Willis looks like shit. He’s been shot, strangled, battered, scraped, and, in the movie’s most wince-worthy moment, made to pull shards of broken glass out of the soles of his bare feet. But he’s still able to think quickly enough to tape a gun to his back and use his last two bullets to shoot the last two bad guys.